Vice
by Inudaughter
Summary: One personal shortcoming costs Kagome all that she has.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: No I do not own Inuyasha. I am borrowing him. Look out, there is no happy ending for this story.

Selfishness is vice. Vice leads to destruction. Kagome did not mean to harbor selfishness in her heart. It came against her unwillingly, germinating in her own heart like a craggy thorn intent on breaking her apart. Kagome abhorred selfishness.

Yet it was still there. Her one true fault, the sacred jewel knew, was her inability to transcend humanity. She was no divine being or immortal saint. Only human.

The jewel knew this and it listened. Tears seeped, dripping down onto the hand of the maiden whom guarded it. The sacred jewel laid in wait, gleaming dark and unholy in its modest glass prison.

"I wish she was gone from our lives forever!" the anguished one said, a tormented cry tearing from her lips against her wishes as the sacred jewel reflected on her own. But then the young maiden stopped, raising a quavering hand to her tear spattered cheek. "Have I truly become such a terrible person?" she murmured. "I probably have a terrible face right now. I can't face him. I can't let him see me like this." With that she turned on her heel, and any unholy wish the jewel might have contemplated granting was wrenched from transient fate. Kagome had escaped. For now.

The journey in the world beyond the well continued, unended. Time found the sacred jewel pieced together, as much from its own actions as that of those enviously desiring it. The jewel waited, biding its time as the thorns worked their way through the veins of its prey.

Love thwarted it. Kagome's heart proved too pure hate anyone, even Kikyo. The jewel scorned.

But footsteps fell, crouching, faltering, as they must ultimately would, leading the love-steeped maiden down to kneel in the clutches of fate. Just like Kikyo.

"I love him," Kagome sat around a campfire one night. The sacred jewel in its entirety winked within her fingertips, daring her to claim its promises. "I love Inuyasha so much. I want him to be happy, Sango, even if it means him being with Kikyo. But it hurts so much. I just wish he had never fallen in love with Kikyo."

An unholy light swirled unbidden. Kagome found herself gulping in a burst of blood tinged pink. Miasma and spiritual power both flashed before her, twining together in towers of blue clashes and spires of red. A new light consumed her, and she began to see things as they were never meant to be seen. Realization came with cruelty.

"If Inuyasha never loved Kikyo," said Kagome from her gravity-less tomb, "then…" Time rent before her as the past became no more.

It all happened simultaneously. The sacred jewel pulsed and then, the tragic truth could be seen. Back then Inuyasha did not love her. Since he could not love anyone, they traveled as strangers. Back then Inuyasha did not protect Kagome. Yura tore out her heart instead. Back then when he awakened, he had killed her without delay. Back then there was no back then as the jewel found its final resolution.

A fragile, snowy hand pushed back a bamboo curtain. The sorrowed melody of its owner's voice could be heard and a miko entered. She silently removed her soaked socks and sandals to come sit by the warmth of a sunken hearth. A gentle creak of wooden boards was the only break in the quiet, aside from the faint crackling of a cooking fire.

"Kaede," the regal one said, lowering a straw hat to the floor. Its dusting of snow vanished in the vapors of heat. "It is done."

"What is done, big sister?" The young girl spoke reverently, focusing both eyes wholly upon her kind and idol. In her ambitions to swallow the vision, she nearly dropped her ladel.

"I destroyed the half-demon today. I do not know why I hesitated for so long." Kikyo accepted a bowl of hot stew as she stated this impassively. This was an unimportant conversation to her. It was if they were speaking of some stray dog, or perhaps a nuisance rat that had scuttled beneath the floorboards and chewed on their bedding.

"That's good sister," Kaede responded. "He was a little scary." Kikyo nodded and the conversation was over. Or so Kaede thought. Her elder sister remained absorbed in the deeds of the day until she finally found expression.

"The jewel did something unusual today," said Kikyo fingering it gently. "While I was dispatching the half-demon the jewel burned dark for only a moment. It became necessary for me to purify it. It was almost as if the jewel had been used in order to fulfill some selfish desire." Kaede blinked, half-frightened by the admission.

"Do you think the hanyou did it?" she asked fretfully.

"It is unlikely."

The eerie conversation dropped. The comfortable, shallow companionship the two sisters shared returned instead, each thinking in their own universe. Kaede looked down into her soup bowl and it was as if there was a question there floating upon the surface. She took it up immediately. Knowledge is the foundation of wisdom after all.

"Big sister, do you think anything bad will come of it?" Kaede asked this curiously. Sometimes, killing one demon meant facing the revenge of other demons.

"I doubt it." Kikyo's chilled voice continued. She breathed gently on a spoonful of stew to cool it. "He was a half-demon, despised by humans and demons alike. No one will miss him."

"Not even you big sister?"

"Not even I," said Kikyo. Soon the firelight dwindled. The two sisters curled up in the same bedding to keep warm. Silence uttered. Between the two sisters there was happiness. But inside the jewel there was disharmony. A screaming pain inside continued as ever it had and ever it would, with one little difference.

As Kikyo lay there lost in the somber moods of her subtle dreams, she dreamt she could hear someone sobbing. The heart-torn wails touched the miko for some reason she could not fathom. It was almost as if it was she who was mourning. But the veil between dreams and the waking world remained untorn. Ultimately, Kikyo's restlessness faded and the miko fell into deeper, quieter dreams. Kikyo failed to notice the beads of moisture that formed along the jewel's surface. No one saw, or even sorrowed for the sacred jewel as it cried.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Still don't own Inuyasha.

The next morning found Kikyo by the riverside, washing laundry like the other women. Ever dutiful as she was, she frequented the shallow riverbank more often than any other, offering a small smile to any passer by. Today her smile was even more forced than usual.

Kikyo would not have gone so far as to call it a disturbance. The air around her was by no means unusal. The world was perculated by a dew-drenched calm. The hint of even a single youkai was yet to be seen. And yet, something unnatural tugged at the veteran miko's heart. It was sorrow.

It was beyond Kikyo to discover what she was sorrowed about. She contemplated it for a good long while, making polite conversation with the women she secretly envied. Perhaps that envy was the very reason she sorrowed. Normally, Kikyo was so resigned to her miko duties and the lack of the touch of a man that it did not occur to her to mourn it. The disappointment merely hung about her in her unconsciousness, giving her a somber air which other people misjudged for composure and esteemed her for. Perhaps it was even jealousy for her junior Nara, on whom even knelt against the riverbank as she was the plump, swollen abdomen if a growing pregnancy could be seen. Later on, lost amongst the concealing branches of the thick woods Kikyo lay a slim white hand on her own pale belly. It felt so cold and empty.

On thing Kikyo would never admit to others under any circumstances was what she felt was her failure as a woman. Humanity plagued her just as any other and sometimes a faceless lover would infiltrate her dreams, bringing her an emotional completion as she was treated just like an ordinary woman. Her heart and body were longing to be used and this they were time and time again only for her wishes to prove false and her hopes for acceptance filtered away at dawn. It was as if she were a very ugly woman, or perhaps diseased than no one would look at her and stoke her with the fires of lust. Still, her logical mind argued with herself. She had come to an understanding; and thus she accepted her fate with heart-chilled regalness.

Kikyo looked stonily across the spreading dawn. The rolling swish as she tread through the grass soothed her slightly with its commonness. Her red hakama splotted with moisture which, she knew, would dry with the heat of the late morning sun.

It occurred to Kikyo like an afterthought. Veering left, she pressed much deeper into the forest. The boughs of aged trees came to seclude her. They were much broader here than near the village. This reality was forged by practicality; villagers preferred to gain their firewood from sources nearby. It reduced the amount of toil they had to go through and reduced the number of fatalities they suffered from roving demons.

Not that many demons chose to live or travel through here anyway. Kikyo's spiritual energy remained strong, her never having had the opportune to love anyone. Only the strange half-demon had bothered to move in, possibly because he was too weak to find a better territory.

Speaking of half-demons, Kikyo made her way to his corpse now. She stood over it impassively, watching the crows as they took lift with squawks of indignation. For some cause unknown to her, his death trembled her heart more than she thought it should. Perhaps it was because he had been part human?

All these "perhaps." Kikyo shuttered at her blatant weakness. All this doubting of her own heart which shrouded her in a constant veil of misery. Soon, she would become the great miko everyone mistook her to be. Then she would know no doubt. Her heart would cease its endless quavering.

Kikyo turned rapidly away from the corpse which already was decaying. No trace of life remained and so, satisfied with her project, Kikyo ambled away. She found herself touring all her favorite haunts, rather automatically. Ultimately she found her way to the sacred tree known as Goshinoboku.

As guardian priestess to this village, it was Kikyo's responsibility to fold the offerings of paper. Frowning slightly, she nervously fidgeted with slightly tattered rice paper. Soon, she would replace them.

Kikyo bowed neatly to the Goshinoboku. Then she turned sat beneath another tree proximate to it. To sit directly beneath it like a common tree, she thought, would be less than respectful towards it. The tree stared back at her dispassionately.

The calm was almost boring and Kikyo felt her muscles, tense since this morning, start to loosen. Her eyelids lidded and soon she drifted into sleep. The jewel pulsed.

Blood. The sting of claws tearing into her. A deep-settled chill as the warmth of her still-living heart bled out and she became a cold as the air. She swooned and fell into nothingness. So much hurt and betrayal.

Kikyo's eyes snapped open. Her mouth fell wide in a silent scream and she scrambled up, looking at her ceremonial robes. No slick of crimson stained it, no demon lurked about, hungering after her corpse. Kikyo let out a sigh of relief. She then rubbed her eyes and turned for home.

"Perhaps I am touched by some illness." All of these perhaps again.


End file.
